Once upon a time Springfield, Ohio was known as “The Champion City.” This name has less to do with a history of beating the odds and is more associated with a brand of farming equipment which was once manufactured in the area. In fact at one point in time Springfield was well-established as a manufacturing city as well as a shipping and transportation hub.

Unfortunately that status has long since slipped by the wayside, and Springfield has become a city of slow decay. For years the infrastructure has slipped a bit more at a time, and the various attempts by the local Chamber of Commerce to halt or even reverse this decline have had little visible impact, at least down on the streets and in the lives of everyday people, which is where it matters.

Unfortunately this trend seems to have hit “geek” business the hardest. While both Hawkeye’s Comics and Wolf’s Lair Games had notable runs within Springfield both eventually disappeared, and it would be years before Howling Wolf Games would attempt its short-lived Springfield expansion.

So when Main Street Comics & Games opened earlier this year, I wasn’t expecting them to last long or to surprise me with much. They were, after all, moving into a city where most people had long since adjusted to traveling to Yellow Springs, Dayton or Columbus for their comic and gaming needs. When they announced a few months ago that they were intending to put on Springfield’s first comic convention in close to two decades my skepticism grew; in this particular case it was colored by memories of the efforts of friends to put on a local gaming convention. This effort did not turn out well (and rumor had it of all the people there I was the only paying attendee – I politely refused the offered refund).

The above point of view led me to evangelize for the Champion City Comic Con less than I should have. While I mentioned it to a few individuals, I made no great effort to spread the word, as I did not want to recommend that people attend something that would prove to be a either a general letdown or an utter debacle.

Which is why I am glad to say that Scott Riley, Bill Gladman and everyone else involved with organizing and putting on the show left me not only pleasantly surprised, but very much impressed. They put on a well organized show, with an adequately sized dealer’s area for both the amount of merchandise and the number of attendees; I can think of only one instance where I had problems moving from point A to point B because of traffic congestion. The dealer’s also had a fairly good selection… provided you weren’t looking for several items I wanted. I’m aware that many of these dealers could only bring a fraction of their stock, but really couldn’t they have dropped me a line to ask what I wanted? Because no one had any of the Black Lantern rings with them, and the only issue of Doktor Sleepless I found was one Joseph stumbled across shoved into a ten cent box.

Not that I had any problems finding things to spend money on. Between the dealer’s room and the memorial auction I spent close to $200… and that’s not counting the $100 gift certificate I won in the auction, and which was immediately turned into yet more comic books. As always the ten cent boxes proved to be my bane, and I probably bought somewhere between 50 – 70 issues scavenged from them (including a stack of old Malibu “Ultraverse” titles).

In addition to the purchased swag I walked away with a ton of free stuff. The convention itself was offering door prizes – I purchased extra tickets and wound up winning twice. While some of the swag was the sort of thing you’d expect, such as ancient packs of trading cards, the bulk of it was hardback comic collections, a t-shirt in one case, individual issues including an ashcan by one of the artists at the show, and sundry bits. I got more value than what it cost to get in just in those door prize bags. I believe the correct phrase in response to this is: Booyah! Of course the winning didn’t stop there. The folks from necessarycool.com were upstairs, and they did a raffle of their own. They were offering several copies of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger: Born HC as well as Gaiman’s Eternals HC. There was also an eleventh package that consisted of both of those, a t-shirt and a couple other bits of swag. My ever annoying sidekick Joseph won one of the copies of The Gunslinger… care to guess just who won the whole enchilida? If you’re a bit slow on the uptake I’ll save you the effort: it was me.

There was a decent selection of area artists on hand, and Joseph and I chatted with a few, though we perhaps should have chatted with a few more. In general the artists on hand seemed like a great bunch of folks. We didn’t slip into any of the panels, mostly because I was too busy with my shopping frenzy and dropping off periodic fliers, but from all reports they went well, and podcasts of the events are being posted over at comicrelated.com

Speaking of Comic Related, kudos to them for letting us sneak in a brief interview. I don’t know if it went well, but that’s why you should keep an eye out for it, and then apply your ears and give it a listen.

Overall it was a hell of a day: bought a lot of things, won some sway, talked to some nifty folks, did a bit of pimping, and I rounded it off by drinking myself into a stupor.

Despite being a hell of a day, there were a few things I didn’t like about the show.

First and foremost The Manson Bunch didn’t have a table. I’m from Springfield born and bred, and it would have been nice for my first “official” convention appearance as The Manson Josh to happen right here in my own home town. I know that space was pretty much booked from the word go, but I sent an e-mail asking if we could be squeezed in… an e-mail that sadly went unanswered. I’m more than willing to allow the benefit of the doubt and presume this particular message simply fell through the cracks; I’ve done that myself often enough, eh? Fixing this for next year’s show would go a long way toward making things hugs and puppies in Mansontown hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Much of the second floor was given over to video games… yeah, me I could live with seeing those cut back to half or less. Space in the venue is somewhat limited, and while I’ll admit that the games seemed to be a big draw less games means more room for comic stuff. I’d think that even if I had been at a table. Less games, more comics.

Flow between the first and second floors also could have been better. I don’t know what exactly could have been done to fix it, but it was observed by various people that it could be improved.

And finally the afterparty. I performed my standard function and drank self into stupor, but would have liked to have seen a few changes. The band that played sounded pretty good, I admittedly didn’t listen to much, but what I did listen to I did not hate. That said I would have preferred to see something a bit more geek-themed/weird like Scattered Planets or Lunarium. I’m also not a big fan of the venue. While it’s decently sized, the drink prices aren’t awful, and it was close to the show venue, it’s far too much of a college bar for my tastes. There was also a three hour gap between show close and party start. While I realize it’s important to give people time to decompress, eat, change etc. before rolling to the party I would have preferred a slightly shorter delay.

Still most of the quibbles are pretty minor ones. Overall it was an excellent show, particularly for being the first year of a show and pulled together on relatively short notice, and I’m looking forward to next year’s offering.